Tuesday, May 18, 2004

Smizik on Jack Wilson

We like Bob Smizik's latest on Jack Wilson. Readers of H. Wags aren't astonished by the strong start - not unless they were face-down and passed out at the table when we went over Jack's chances for improvement this spring.

Just because a young player posts near-identical stats in his 23rd and 24th year doesn't mean that is his plateau or "true level" of play. It was a coincidence, that's all. Jack will only maintain his high slugging percentage if he continues to hit a lot of triples, but the rest of the performance is not that far "above" or away from a level we think he can maintain.

As for drawing walks, we maintain that you don't need to draw a lot walks if you hit .350 or even .300. A lot of walks only matter when a player is hitting .230 or .250. The point of "plate discipline" - that ability to draw walks which arises from good strike-zone judgment and pitch recognition - is to hit pitches hard. If a walk is as good as a hit, it's only as good as an infield single. It's beyond stupid to expect that all hitters - regardless of batting average - draw one walk per ten at-bats. If a player can hit .400, obviously that player has outstanding plate discipline, regardless of whether or not he draws walks. There should be a sliding scale with walks per at-bats. A player that hits only .210 or .230 - Hee Choi, Adam Dunn of a year ago, and D'Angelo Jimenez come to mind - better walk a ton if they want their performance to show evidence that they have good plate discipline. A player who hits .270 should walk a good amount, a player who hits .300 doesn't need to walk quite so much, and a guy that hits .350 or .400 doesn't really need to walk much at all. There's a hare-brained superstition that players hitting .350 with few walks are "less likely" to keep up that .350 BA which is as bold as predicting that teams with a 14-2 record with many one-run wins are "less likely" to finish 140-20. Duh, no one is likely to finish the season with a .350 BA.

The test of Jack Wilson's improved hitting is not how many walks he draws while he is hitting .350. It's whether or not he draws enough walks during stretches of .250 hitting to maintain a .340+ OBP.

...rainout update: AWT's comment shows I'm not being clear or coherent. Here's my point with Wilson's lack of walks to date. Look at his projected stats for this year. He's on pace for 50 doubles, 19 triples, and 19 home runs. What can we say? The little guy is hitting the ball hard. Anyone who second-guesses his performance to date as anything short of awesome is looking at a gift Z4 and saying yeah, but my '86 Toyota Corolla was bigger. No doubt that, all things being equal, a high-walks .349 hitter is better than a low-walks .349 hitter but we are way at the top of the curve here, approaching the limit which is HOF level. And sure a high-walks .349 hitter is more likely to hit .349 all year than a low-walks .349 hitter. And a high-walks .349 hitter may actually be likely to finish the year at .349. Think Albert Pujols. Now, remember we are talking about Jack Wilson. The guy hits .349 with a .372 OBP and we're going to say yeah, but he's not Albert Pujols? I don't think so. If Jack Wilson goes 20-for-his-next-100 with four walks then I'll agree he's not walking enough. In the meantime, so long as his OBP is 370, everyone line up and take your turn saying Jack Wilson has had spectacular OBP so far this season.

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